Diabolical Plots
#70, December 2020
“’My Legs Can Fell Trees’ and Other Songs for a Hungry Raptor” by Matthew Schickele
“Tony Roomba’s Last Day on Earth” by Maria Haskins
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
Two stories are on offer in this month’s Diabolical Plots, both centered around aliens finding themselves in less than ideal circumstances here on Earth.
“‘My Legs Can Fell Trees’ and Other Songs for a Hungry Raptor” by Matthew Schickele
An intelligent bird-like alien is marooned on a strange planet. Unfortunately, before she could find out where she’d crashed, she fell into a chasm and has now been trapped underground for weeks. A musician on her homeworld, she spends her days playing the bagpipes for other small birds (which she calls lengs) also living in the caverns and which serve as a food source. Everything goes as well as can be expected in this way until, one day, a clothing-wearing ape shows up to watch her performance.
Schickele’s tale is an engaging read. Our unnamed alien visitor makes for quite the interesting protagonist, and I like that she was chosen for this role instead of her human observer. It makes for a much more stimulating narrative, being on the inside of an alien’s mind.
That said, I am a tad confused on a couple of points. For example, I don’t understand why the human drives the lengs out of the cave. That seems like a ridiculous and dangerous thing to do. Why remove what was clearly a ready food source for what is, from his perspective, a dangerous predator? Is he down there researching the birds, and he feels this was a way to protect them? But then, if their native habitat is in the caverns, that seems like it would do more harm than good. Again, this isn’t written from the human’s perspective, but I do feel as though some attention should have been paid to explaining his presence, even if it’s just speculation based on what the alien raptor observes. She’s an intelligent being from a race that practices scientific inquiry. She should be able to identify a scientific research setup, even if it is primitive in comparison to something of her own people’s devising. All in all, this story is a good read; it just left me scratching my head a bit.
“Tony Roomba’s Last Day on Earth” by Maria Haskins
Roombas. They’ve become increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reason—just not for ones most people expect. Tony is one such Roomba, having infiltrated this human habitation two years ago disguised as a gift. Today, though, is his last day on Earth. He needs to reach the extraction point and submit his intel-report back to the Galactic Robot Alliance. Unfortunately, he’s already fifteen minutes late to the rendezvous thanks to the humans’ cat, Hortense. If Tony doesn’t get her off his back soon and exit the apartment, he won’t be able to stop the Alliance from making a huge mistake.
Haskins’ story is such an enjoyable, engaging read. It really is a cute story. Everything from the idea of Roombas being part of a massive (if poorly planned) alien invasion scheme that hopes to score “local help” from the Terminator, Skynet, and other non-existent sources (admit it—we’ve all suspected at some point or another that Furbys must be part of some terrible world-domination plot) to the love affair between a robot and a house cat, this is an incredibly fun, fast-paced story that will leave readers with a smile.